I'm gonna try and get caught up on some overdue posts here, I've been busy and haven't gotten out as much as I'd like to. I did manage to get out on the Fox for a quick flathead trip about a week and a half ago.

I had gotten bait earlier in the morning, so all I had to do was get the boat in he water. By 8:00 PM I was in the water and ready to fish. The river was up a bit, maybe 10", so I decided to fish a flat bordering deeper water on the old river channel loaded with submerged boulders. The thing that makes this area more attractive during high water as opposed to lower water, is that when the river is up, it get a little bit of current on it. A lot of times it's the difference between a couple of good fish and no fish at all.

I tossed one line out across the flat to cover the deeper boulders along the channel edge, and one along the heavy shoreline brush that hangs out onto the flat. As darkness fell, I still hadn't had a hit, and just as I was starting to rethink my strategy of parking on this high percentage spot, I noticed that the rod set close to the shoreline cover was slowly beginning to load up. I picked up the rod, felt the steady pull of the fish as it drew the rod tip down and set the hook. It felt like a pretty good fish, and having hooked it at relatively close quarters with the brush, turning the fish away from the heavy cover was the first priority. Once I had the fish out of the heavy stuff, it was just a matter of seeing it in the dark so I could lip it and get it in the boat. The fish was stubborn, and it hung tough not wanting to come off the bottom. Once it tired, I grabbed it and it turned out to be a nice flathead of just over 13 lbs. After weighing and a quick photo the fish was released.

I rebaited and tossed into the same area only this time a bit further down the shoreline. Fifteen minutes went by, and I noticed a slow, short pump on the same rod. A flathead for sure, I picked up the rod and waited. I could feel that the fish had dropped the bait, so I held it and waited to see if the fish would return. I wasn't ready for the hit that followed, the fish just out and out whacked the bait sending a shock down the rod, into my arm and slacking up the line. I quickly recovered the slack line, and after feeling the weight of the fish set the hook. It felt like another good fish, at least as good as the first one, but after five or six seconds the line went slack and the fish was gone. Unfortunately it was probably lightly or whisker hooked and was able to tear free.

Things settled down a bit for another fifteen minutes or so, but finally the rod that I had set on the deep edge of the flat on the submerged boulders began to slowly load up. I took the rod from the holder, and in two long pulls the fish had the rod down to the 45 degree position. I set the hook, and this time the rod just stopped cold at the top of the hook set before the fish broke into a series of heavy head shakes. It easily felt like the biggest fish I'd had on all year, and my mind started to race at the thought of the size of the fish. Suddenly the line went slack, and hoping against hope I raced to pick up the slack line. Praying that the fish had just decided to run at the boat, my worst fears were realized when I caught up to the rig and the fish was gone. As I reeled up to the boat, I felt the weight of the sunfish still on the line and without even seeing it realized what had happened. The hook had double back into the bait, the point was buried and running along the spine pointing directly towards the tail. I held the sunfish tightly in my right hand, wrapped the short leader around my left hand and pulled. The hook was buried so tightly in the spine of the bait that I couldn't rip it free. I never had a chance, there was no way that hook point was ever going to penetrate the jaw of the fish.

There's no doubt I was disheartened over losing that fish, and after another fishless hour I called it quits. That was a tough one to take, judging by the distance of the pulls as the fish moved off with bait and the way it felt on the hookset. Chances are it was one of those rare, bigger fish that don't come along very often. I won't venture to say how big because I didn't see it, but I'd like another shot at it to find out for sure!

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Chitown-Angler was started on February 10, 2003 and has received 173472108 page views in total since that date.

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